Simulation of trickle bed electrochemical reactor for hydrogen peroxide synthesis

Abstract

A 2D multi-physics, multi-component model was developed to analyze the effects of electrolyte concentration, flow rates and applied voltage on the performance of a trickle bed electrochemical reactor for hydrogen peroxide synthesis. The trickle bed reactor with a porous cathode composed of carbon black and polytetrafluoroethylene was designed in our previous work. An important feature of the reactor was a divided-cell structure of the cathode, which resulted in a much-improved performance. In order to describe various phenomena that affect the behavior of the system, it is desirable to model the divided cell TBER for H2O2 generation. The simulation used three main models including the electrochemical model, the mass transfer model, and the fluid dynamics model to solve the coupled voltage (charge), mass and momentum balance. The simulation results were compared with the experimental data, showing reasonably good agreements for different variables. Also, the distribution results of the divided cell model were compared with the undivided ones and did show a better improvement on the distribution of the H2O2 concentration. The model can be used as an optimization tool for further improvement of the trickle bed electrochemical reactor.